The Wolf (Under the Northern Sky #1)

by Leo Carew

“It feels … it feels as though my lungs are bruised,” he said, voice growing thinner and thinner as though he scarce had the heart to finish the sentence. Bellamus supposed this had weighed particularly heavily on Northwic, who bore ultimate responsibility for this army. It was his organisation which had been so ruthlessly exposed by this attack. Bellamus knew how that felt. He had seen defeats that left him utterly bereft; empty to the extent of feeling physically shrivelled, each breath like trying to swallow butterflies. At that moment, Bellamus himself felt more as though he had been slapped in the face. The word Northwic had used to describe this raid had lodged in him. Dismissive. The masters of this dreamworld had appeared at last and treated their efforts with contempt. Northwic and Bellamus had torched their way through the Black Kingdom, and the response had been silence. In retrospect, that silence seemed ominous. There was a bitter taste in the valley. Though Bellamus would not admit it, he was beginning to feel lost in this wasteland. From afar, the Anakim had fascinated him. In context, surrounded by an order that was alien to Bellamus, they were more disturbing than fascinating. The haughty, snow-dusted peaks were the overseers of this capricious wilderness, at whose whim you operated. On their return from pursuing Roper, Northwic’s forces had turned a corner on one of the tortuous Anakim roads and startled a grazing aurochs. The enraged bull had marauded th...